Mermaid in Chelsea Creek

Chelsea Trilogy #1

by Michelle Tea, Jason Polan (Illustrator)

Everyone in the broken-down town of Chelsea, Massachussetts, has a story too worn to repeat—from the girls who play the pass-out game just to feel like they're somewhere else, to the packs of aimless teenage boys, to the old women from far away who left everything behind. But there’s one story they all still tell: the oldest and saddest but most hopeful story, the one about the girl who will be able to take their twisted world and straighten it out. The girl who will bring the magic.

Could Sophie Swankowski be that girl? With her tangled hair and grubby clothes, her weird habits and her visions of a filthy, swearing mermaid who comes to her when she’s unconscious, Sophie could be the one to uncover the power flowing beneath Chelsea’s potholed streets and sludge-filled rivers, and the one to fight the evil that flows there, too. Sophie might discover her destiny, and maybe even in time to save them all.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Mermaids, LGBT, Magical Realism, Queer

331 pages, Hardcover

First published May 14, 2013

About the author

Michelle Tea (born Michelle Tomasik) is an American author, poet, and literary arts organizer whose autobiographical works explore queer culture, feminism, race, class, prostitution, and other topics. She is originally from Chelsea, Massachusetts and currently lives in San Francisco. Her books, mostly memoirs, are known for their views into the queercore community. In 2012 Tea partnered with City Lights Publishers to form the Sister Spit imprint.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such an odd, magical book. It's not a perfect book by any means, but it's so full of heart and soul that I just couldn't help but get lost in it. It's very unique in every way: setting, characters, story, voice. I loved the illustrations, I thought they went along with the story perfectly and really enhanced the experience. I'll definitely be continuing with this strangely beautiful series when the next book is released.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michelle Tea's Valencia was the perfect salve for my troubled little closeted queer heart a few years back--I loved and needed it so much you don't even know, I can't hype it enough--and I really enjoyed Rose of No Man's Land (unforgettable read), so naturally I was thrilled when I heard about this book. Lovely cover and design too so well done McSweeney's.

Unfortunately this didn't live up to my expectations. The writing was usually lovely and all the magical world-building was candy-delicious and the teenagers acted like real teenagers which I always appreciate and I loved Ella and Sophie's fucked up friendship, but the ending was so abrupt and emotionally manipulative that it left me feeling irritated. Also sometimes Tea's writing style, which (like I said) is usually lovely, became too purple for my tastes, and the pacing was occasionally lackluster. Despite this disappointment, I still love Michelle Tea. Stellar writers fuck up all the time. She'll always be my witchy literary big sister.

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many typos.

[Elle (ellexamines on TT & Substack) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars. Any book that takes me two months to finish can't be that great. While Mermaid In Chelsea Creek has some good aspects, like appealing magical realism and a sweet wlw romance plot, it's far too boring to be engaging.

The Bad; Namely, Plotting

This book is incredibly slow and undriven. The plot developed slowly and very undramatically. I enjoyed the second half slightly more, but it's all pretty boring. In fact, we know the villain by the halfway mark. Yet none of the characters actually do anything about it until near the end, for confusing reasons. There's no sense of tension for the final battle. At some point, you don't feel compelled to finish, you just want to get the book over with.

In terms of characters, this wasn't a complete fail, but the villain is definitely a failure. She's flat and boring, despite being an interesting concept.

The Wasted Potential

I did like how Michelle Tea incorporated setting into her world. Chelsea Creek is just as claustrophobic and uncomfortable as you'd expect, and it's a lovely setting for this novel. She unfortunately doesn't use the setting nearly enough as a part of the plot. This is a subjective issue, but there is too much gore. One of the main characters is dealing with OCD, which at one point causes her to burn acid holes in her skin. It's described very vividly to a point where I was cringing. This will be a subjective thing, but anyone not okay with this kind of imagery should stay away.

There's a sweet romance plot and a hint of family drama between Chelsea and her mom, but neither of these relationships are analyzed to my satisfaction. I can't believe I'm saying this, but add more romance next time. Chelsea's family relationships seem so complex at the onset, and yet they fall flat and aren't resolved.

Everything else about this book was solidly in the realm of “just okay”. The main characters aren't actively annoying, but they aren't very interesting either. The writing is decent and fits this kind of book. There's just nothing special here. Not recommended.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dirty, poor, run-down Chelsea, Massachusetts, is not exactly an exciting place to be 13. That is, not until Sophie Swankowski meets a mermaid when she’s hanging out down by the creek with her best friend. Syrena isn’t your typical mermaid – she’s a trash-talking, ancient creature from the rivers of Poland, and she’s come to tell Sophie about her destiny.

It turns out, Sophie fulfills a prophecy about a girl who will bring magic and hope back to the world. Now, she has to learn to harness and use her power, aided by poetic talking pigeons (yes, pigeons!) and the handsome Angel, who makes art from broken glass and who comes from a long line of curanderas – all while avoiding the forces of evil which bring despair to the world.

I absolutely love this book. It’s heart-stoppingly exciting, and combines just the right amount of magic with the story of a completely relatable girl and her totally real, complicated life. In other words, it puts the “real” in “magical realism.” Adults (especially if you’re familiar with Michelle Tea’s fantastic memoirs) will enjoy this just as much as younger readers. This is a book for anyone ages 12 and up who could use a little magic in their life.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is something about Michelle Tea's voice that is super-addictive. I can't get enough of her slightly damaged yet fierce, tragic but hilarious heroines and their casually intimate, piercingly funny stream-of-consciousness narratives. I've enjoyed everything she's written from "Valencia" to "Rose of No Man's Land," which was technically not a YA book but felt like one to me. So I was thrilled to hear she was writing a YA novel for McSweeney's new YA imprint. And when my copy finally arrived from the library, I gobbled it up in one sitting. However, it left me strangely unsatisfied. The premise is intriguing -- Sophie, an otherwise unremarkable 13 year-old, has visions of a mermaid living in polluted Chelsea Creek that lead her down a strange and unlikely road to her destiny, which involves a flock of pigeons, the town dump, and other unlikely scenarios. Tea convincingly renders Chelsea, Mass in all its gritty glory and her teen characters act like real teens: full of fear and bravado and confusion and tenderness. But two things about this book bugged me: 1) I guess I find the idea of being a "chosen" one who will save the world pretty archaic and not all that interesting. One thing I appreciated about China Mieville's Un Lun Dun was his willingness to take that tired old fantasy trope and turn it completely upside down. 2) I'm annoyed by series books that feel like they're just setting you up for the next volume. This book doesn't really feel like it can stand on its own -- there's too much obvious world-building and not enough action. The ending felt very abrupt, in an almost manipulative way. I want to know what happens next but I'm pissed that the narrative got cut off before the main character really accomplished much besides learning about her destiny. Because there are so many other things I admire about Michelle Tea and her writing style, I'm sure I'll read the next one, but this is not one of my favorite works by her.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Michelle Tea writes amazingly of real world relationships. The stuff between the main character and the mom, and the main character and the best friend felt really, really incredible, lived in, and true.

Unfortunately, this is a YA fantasy novel. And Michelle Tea doesn't do those things nearly as well (and, didn't have an editor who'd ever done these before either, or so I've heard). The YA-ness of the book seemed to talk down to its nominal audience of young people in a lot of ways. And the fantasy stuff, just ... eh. The whole stuff about the main character being "the one" seemed really hackneyed and done and not really iterated on in an interesting way. And while using Polish mythology as a backbone for the supernatural stuff, this wasn't very felt, and just seemed like the author had a Wikipedia tab open to "Polish mythology" the entire time. The culturation of the mythology didn't really seem to inform anything in the narrative, and could have been swapped out for any other mythology you might think of.

Also, this definitely, definitely did not feel like it was (or needed to be) part of a trilogy. This book itself had no arc, and didn't feel like it was contributing to a larger series arc. The actual conflict here is really ill defined outside the assertion that one character is "bad".

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adore Michelle Tea, my favourite of her books is Valenciaso I was pretty excited about reading this, the first in a young adult series.

I was sort of expecting more of the same Tea that I love, but this is pretty different to her other books and reminded me of Francesca Lia Block. It's a gritty (ish) urban fantasy novel with talking pigeons and magic and the ability to get into peoples hearts to find out what they are feeling.

I really enjoyed it, and loved bits like this:

"It was a piece of glass, a blue so faint it was like the thought of blue, the very beginning of the color."

but it didn't completely do it for me in the way that some of Tea's previous books have done, tho will definitely be reading the next in the series

[Kari (BookandCoffeeLover) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite a slow start, this book captured my attention with it's magical realism. The plight young Sophie faces may not be a familiar one, yet as a girl on the cusp on young adulthood she is all to easy to relate to. The fantasy elements of this story were woven wonderfully with the pain and anguish of growing up. I can't wait to read more of this series - though waiting for the next instalment will be difficult.

Originally published on LibraryThing Dec.22, 2013 (x)

[Dylan · Rating 1 out of 5]

What makes this book bad isn’t that it’s terrible. It’s that it’s so goddamn good at being mediocre. Everything from the writing “style” to vocabulary to plot construction screams rudimentary. There were two things that really perplexed me about this book:the villain’s motives/plans (or I suppose, lack thereof is more fitting) and the reader demographic. It seems as if this book is suited best for twelve-year-olds but will then adds in obscenities or innuendos. Though, frankly, this book isn’t really suited for anyone. Just skip it.

[Sabina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't even with this beautiful book. Ordinary girl in a desperately ordinary, fucked-up town discovers she is a witch meant to save the world. Finds her magical family and teachers in pigeons, an ancient grimy mermaid, her doting pediatrician, a tenderqueer Chicana bruja and her curandera mom, the sweetest and most powerful babushka, and a dog that used to be her grandfather. And this is only the first of the trilogy! Wtf!

[Maja · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, this book clearly tries to be very edgy YA, and it has a beautiful cover but it was just so badly constructed and written, I'm a little amazed at it. It's very deliberately a world which is extremely ugly, filled with sad and despairing people, and you sort of think it's going for a grimdark take. But then it's also extremely simple with two sides of pure good and pure evil? I really don't understand what this book was trying to tell me, and it didn't even have a real plot structure. The ending is a cliffhanger but nothing in the world could make me read the next book.
Takeaways: Cockroaches can crawl into the ears of babies and also there are teenage girls who choke themselves to pass out and get a sort of hallucinatory dream state. The talking pigeons were cute, I guess.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An old Polish fairy tale, strongly believed from those women who came from the old country, tells of a girl who will come and straighten out the cruel, dirty world they live in. Sophie Swankowski is 13 years old, lives in the broken down town of Chelsea, Massachusetts. Sophie and her best friend play the "pass-out" game just to feel like they are somewhere else. Sophie meets the mermaid, a filthy swearing creature, who tells her how special she is and will bring the magic. From talking pigeons, a crusty old grandmother who lives at the city dump and sweet Angel, Sophie soon discovers her powers and what she is destined to do.

[Renata · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not saying this is a perfect book, and I don't think it's for everybody, but I LOOOOVVVVVEEED it.

One of the reasons I picked it up was that Daniel Handler wrote a rave review of it, and that makes sense to me because I think Michelle Tea and Danielle Handler have somewhat similar styles, in that they are a bit wordy and pretentious but beautiful. I love them both for it, but I can theoretically understand where some readers would find it to be a drawback.

I loved how organically diverse Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is, with Polish and Puerto Rican folklore blending together. I love that one of the protagonist Sophie's mentors is a kind, compassionate, and apparently trans woman.

Also this is the 3rd YA book I've read recently with a character with OCD? Is OCD in now? (All three have been what I believe to be realistic portrayals of actual OCD, not just like, "oh haha I keep my room tidy, I'm soo OCD").

A few quotes:

"I don't think I'm crazy. I think I was just hanging out underwater with this totally busted, sort of mean mermaid."

"Andrea worked to harden herself to the onslaught of feelings. The problem with feelings was, first you had one, which was generally bad enough. But then you had a feeling about your feeling, and then a feeling about how you were feeling about your feeling, and then another feeling would pop up at the sight of it all, this teetering pyramid of emotion, and all of it would look wrong to Andrea, all her feeling somehow incorrect, too much or too little, too soft or too hard, and another feeling would emerge at the thought of that. It was endless, having feelings. And god forbid someone noticed you having them, as Sophie just had. Then you had feelings about that, about having been seen, and more feelings still about the other person's feelings. Oh, it was awful."

by the way there is a lot of talk of feelings in this book, so don't read it if you're not into that. at one point Sophie literally says, "I'm having so many feelings!"

[Arielle]

First things first: I wish this had gone through another handful of rounds of edits. I say this not just because I found a typo or weird grammatical error every 20th page or so (there was that!), but because the concept of the book is strong, and there are more than a few scenes that are sweet and sad and totally heart-rending, but the voice was never quite consistent. The tone jumped around a bit such that it felt like one chapter was meant for middle school readers, the next one for late teenagers, etc. Some of the characters were inadequately fleshed out. I wanted it to be so much tighter than it was, but it always felt like it *could* have been with a little more time and work. And I really do love the conceit of the book a lot. So I hold out hope for the sequels.

On another topic: this book, being the first in a series, isn't an entirely stand-alone story. It does not really end on a cliffhanger -- it just ends on a super-dire (maybe excessively dire) note. It's not a tactic that makes me especially eager for the next one.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book falls into a category that I never knew I needed - lower-class urban fantasy.

Not, like, lower-class as in not-classy, and not urban as in modern. I mean, this is a modern fantasy story for those of us who grew up on food stamps and eating cereal for dinner and hanging out at skeevy beaches full of cigarette butts because our parents were too tired, too jaded, or too messed up to stop us.

We deserve magic in our lives too.

There are stories out there about poor kids, yeah, but somehow they always seem to romanticize a life of poverty. This.... doesn't. And yet it's still beautiful and brilliant and heartbreaking and amazing and there's a character who is a Magical Girl guided by a foul-mouthed tired old mermaid and a gang of pigeons and it is beautiful.

Minus one star for typos and grammatical errors that other reviewers have noted, but other than that, really, this is gold.

[Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think it's great for its target audience, unfortunately that's not me. Would recommend for a preteen or young teen. I keep trying YA, and I keep striking out.

I will say there is some awesome folklore in here, and I was invested in the outcome, just not the story, but again, I think that's just the YA genre, and I can never seem to get into it.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a very good and interesting story, but it isn't well written. The language of the book is flat, always the same plodding tone, and there's not much action to break the long conversations between people telling the main character about her destiny. The POV is third-person omniscient, but switching into different character's perspectives and back happens at random times, even multiple times in the middle of a paragraph. Every character is written in the exact same voice, and even introducing new ones didn't create excitement or intrigue. I'm glad I read it because the story was imaginative, but I don't think I'll read the sequels.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

First things first, the book itself is beautiful. It has a great nineteenth-century feel both on the outside and the inside. The hardcover is deep blue scattered with pictures of birds and a silver silhouette of a girl. Throughout the book in the corner of certain pages, and sometimes taking over an entire page or spreading onto the next one, are illustrations of birds, people, plants, trailers, and other random locales in the dirty, urban climate of Chelsea, Massachusetts where the novel is set. If you like beautiful books, this is an awesome one to have in your collection and it’s only twenty bucks, which is a steal for a hardcover!

Okay, onto the content of Mermaid in Chelsea Creek. This novel has a fantastic combination of a lot of things I love in literature: tough yet vulnerable teenage girl protagonist, gritty urban setting, magical creatures, girls saving the world, feminism, gender play, witches, and talking animals. Our everyday girl chosen for a special destiny is Sophie Swankowski (yes, that’s a Polish last name and I was excited to read about Polish immigrants to North America, since it’s not something I’ve encountered much and I have Polish background myself!). I know the chosen one shtick in fantasy has been done a lot (Harry Potter, etc) but I love it. I love how Sophie, being the uncertain, messy-haired teenager that she is, is pretty reluctant about taking on the responsibility of ridding the world of evil. Her guide is a cussing mermaid who appears out of a filthy river to her during a vision she has while playing the pass-out game with her friend. I’d be weirded out too, Sophie.

See the full review at the lesbrary:
http://lesbrary.com/2013/10/04/casey-...

[Nathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only redeeming quality is that McSweeney's publications are always a gem to hold, look at, and page through. If weren't for this, and the fun sketches throughout the book, I would have put this down once I reached the talking pigeons. Yes, talking magical pigeons. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for some good magical realism and certain types of fantasy. One of my favorite authors is Jonathan Carroll. Good being the operative word, here. Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is not good, even as a young adult novel. It feels like it tries too hard to capture early teen angst, language, friendships, and family problems. It also presents a paint-by-number look of a small, socioeconimically struggling town. It's a surface and cliched early adult fantasy novel, masked as a deeper journey with McSweeney's pretty package. Apparently this is the first of a trilogy by Michelle Tea. Save your money and time, for surely McSweeney's offers much better.

[k-os]

"The children ran out into the streets and the old women thought quietly about how a place could have no magic, how their grandchildren would grow up magicless and never even know it. And the old women would shed a tear and lament the old countries they'd abandoned, longing for a land where the magic came up into their bones just from standing on its earth" (9).

Eek, I wanted to like this book so bad (witchy and explicitly working-class, set in Chelsea, MA), but I'm rounding up if we're honest. CHELSEA CREEK started off with such a promising prologue (see above!), but the rest of the novel did not deliver on that promise. Strangely for YA, it wasn't that CHELSEA CREEK lacked insight or even in style—Tea's sharp and writes a good sentence—it's that the story itself was so weak, from the relative flatness of the characters to the extremely frustrating pacing/narrative arc. Of any first book in a trilogy I've read, this felt the most unsatisfying, offered such little payoff.

[Amanda Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let the fierce, adolescent-style summer reading begin. This book moves at the super quick pace of a magical YA novel, which it is! But it brings a kind of interiority and queer wisdom which I don't remember in, say, Chronicles of Narnia. Proud of and excited for Michelle Tea, as she pushes into new fictional terrain in her work. Polish witches, curanderas, teenage lesbian/gender blurring mentor figures, big Puerto Rican immigrant families, single working moms, a mermaid who cusses, and a determined, messy-haired, confused, but strong willed girl at the center. The only part that snagged me was a good/bad dichotomy, but then this excellently creepy Dula character came in to somewhat transcend/mitigate that. Readreadreadreadread.

[Erica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strong 3.5
Ok, let's get the weird stuff out of the way. I had a very hard time starting this book. Namely because this story is about the grimy dirty side of life we try to pretend doesn't exist. The description of the dirty neighborhood creek made my skin crawl. Yeah, I have some issues. This story was touching because the main character struggles to find her place beyond the dusty trash filled streets. It is a mix of magical stark realism. I rated this 3.5 because the story makes a leap into the fantastical quite suddenly. The transition was a little choppy but smooths out toward the end. Overall, a quick and enjoyable read.

[Allison Floyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a longstanding Michelle Tea fan, I was eager—albeit a bit trepidatious—to see her try her hand at something categorized as YA (a nebulous category, but one of which I'm a fan). This was slow going at first, but since it's the first book in a trilogy, that is perhaps to be expected, and the book really hit its stride to ripen into a work that is at turns heartbreaking, hilarious, violent, and tender. And yes, dare I say it, magical. Really, a beautiful book.

I can't wait for Round Two!

[Catherine King · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautiful cover, interesting idea, good depiction of small town hopelessness and the friendship between the two girls... But also endless exposition, inserted terribly into the text, a morality system that promises to be extremely reductive (when your wise mentor figure outright says "she is pure evil, I am pure good" you know you are in for a frustrating ride) and the ending was so bad. Yikes. Never judge a book by its cover.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Your assignment: save the world, that's all. For help, you've got a flock of pigeons, a mermaid, an old Polish shopkeeper and a junkyard glass collector.
And in the opposite corner, your utterly evil grandmother, who happens to have your father and sister in her horrible clutches. A very promising first installment in this series. Next one out in October 2014.

[Hayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I echo what a lot of readers have said...not perfect, could benefit from way more editing...there are issues but the charm of the book surpasses all of that much like the heroine and her supporting cast.

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, I only made it to page 173. I give up, this story is just not for me. Stick to memoirs, Michelle Tea. I normally adore your writing.

[jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Faery magic and mermaids and gritty urban fantasy and depressed mom and scrappy teenagers and a lil gay. everything good. pigeons. i love.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his blurb for Mermaid in Chelsea Creek, Daniel Handler says it has "the grit and the wit and the girls in trouble loving each other fierce and true" of Michelle Tea's work in general (which totally makes me want to read more by Michelle Tea) and also "all the juice of a terrific fantasy novel, with the magic and the creatures and the otherworldly sense of something lurking underneath each artifact of our ordinary lives," and yeah, I think that's a good description, and captures a lot of why I liked this book so much.

Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is set in Chelsea, Massachusetts, which is described in the first sentence as "a city where people landed" (7). It's a city of immigrants, all of whom bring their own cultures and traditions—and also, their own magic, though it's maybe hard to pass that magic and those traditions on to children and grandchildren who grow up American. Sophie Swankowski, who's thirteen and being raised by a single mom, is the granddaughter of Polish immigrants, though at the start of the story she's not particularly connected to that heritage: she basically sees her Polish grandmother only on holidays, and her overworked mom is more likely to suggest cereal or pizza for dinner than to cook anything. In addition to magic, we learn, the people who land in Chelsea bring stories with them:

And the stories brought from the many places were all different, but then, they were all the same. And the oldest story, the silliest and most dangerous story, the saddest and most hopeful story, was the story of the girl who would bring the magic, the girl who would come to save them all. (9)

OK, so I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that it becomes clear pretty early that this is going to be a Chosen One story—and, surprise, Sophie is the Chosen One. But she doesn't know that to start: she just knows her life in Chelsea, this city that Tea describes like this:

brick and cement, the telephone poles and electrical wires, the roaring buses and the graffitied everything, busted playgrounds, a city with so much wear and tear on it, so many people with so little money coming to it for so long, the threadbare buildings and dollar stores, the railroad tracks where men slept in the tall grass, the sub shops and pizza places and the corner stores selling scratchers and cigarettes, the corner bars with no windows and men inside heaped and immobile as the cracked stools they sat upon. (9)

This being a Chosen One story, it's a lot about Sophie learning about her history/destiny/magic, though meanwhile it's also about her dealing with being grounded on summer vacation, and tensions with her best/only friend, and her growing awareness of herself as her own person, and I thought the combination of it all worked really well. The scenes where Sophie learns about/explores her magic are great, and I also love the magic itself, how much it's about feelings and intuition and, crucially/centrally, empathy: Sophie can read people's hearts and feel what they're feeling.

I loved so many things about this book, from the grumpy/hilarious/bedraggled mermaid of the title to the way that Sophie comes to see pigeons as something other than "rats with wings" to Jason Polan's pleasing illustrations. Minor quibbles: I might have liked this more if it were a standalone book rather than the first of a trilogy, and oh man, so many typos/this book really needed a better proofread. But everything else was delightful enough for me to overlook those things. I took this book with me on the 4th of July, when I went to Queens three hours before the Macy's fireworks so I could get a decent spot in one of the parks by the water with a good view, and it was pretty perfect to be reading this in the midst of the crowd and the heat: it was engrossing enough to get lost in, even in the middle of a whole lot of potential annoyances/distractions.